


The Rusty Quill Goose Podcast

by rainyskiesatdawn



Category: Rusty Quill Gaming (Podcast)
Genre: Gen, Soulmate au!, comedic goose death, except this time it's with geese, grizzop and the no good very bad goose, spoilers through rome, this was supposed to be comedic but by the end i still made it sad oh no
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-01-20
Updated: 2020-02-19
Packaged: 2021-02-27 15:07:15
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 2
Words: 3,495
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/22329070
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/rainyskiesatdawn/pseuds/rainyskiesatdawn
Summary: "soulmate au where one person finds a goose who leads them to the other person. the difficulty comes in not being mauled by a goose"Sasha is Grizzop's (absolutely platonic) soulmate. Too bad he keeps killing the goose trying to tell him that.
Relationships: Grizzop drik Acht Amsterdam & Sasha Racket
Comments: 38
Kudos: 102





	1. Chapter 1

**Author's Note:**

> ....and now for something completely different.
> 
> this is once again caeliulpus's fault.

Grizzop was not, strictly speaking, an expert on geese.

.....okay, so maybe Grizzop knows next to nothing about geese.

So, therefore it _could not at all_ be considered his fault when, woken up by a large, flapping, honking thing crushing him one morning in the temple of Artemis, he grabs his bow, nocks an arrow, and shoots it in the face.

He drags the huge bird through the temple, getting strange looks as he passes by—he’s not quite sure what to do with the thing, so he just figures he’ll give it to the kitchens. Afterwards (they, too, looked at him weird, but they’ve seen him do stranger things and he’s pretty sure everyone’s done asking) he goes to the front to have a chat with the receptionist about _maybe_ paying more attention to what comes through the front door. The receptionist nods strangely, at first, seeming confused for reasons Grizzop can’t even begin to fathom—I mean, really, how hard is it to not let huge geese into the sanctuary—until she interrupts him.

“I do apologize, Grizzop. I thought it must be meant for someone, and, well, you know how these things go.”

Grizzop does not, in fact, _know how these things go_ —are people using geese as messengers, now? He says as much to her before realizing he doesn’t actually care enough to waste even more of his time, and walks off brusquely. The receptionist laughs as he leaves, and he really can’t help but feel like he’s being left out of some horrible joke.

Later that day, he barges past a young woman with a scar on her face, in the temple for healing. He doesn’t pay her much mind.

The next goose shows up, somehow, during the absolutely horrendous “questioning” after the Kafka incident. The Cult of Mars woman is yelling, table held high above her head, and Grizzop is yelling, and then a goose is yelling, and then both the woman and Grizzop are yelling at the goose that has somehow ended up in the center of the room—had the door even opened?—and then the woman brings the table down and there is a horrible sound of a honk being squelched and then a terrible, awful silence where Grizzop and the woman are just staring at each other and Grizzop thinks he’s going to laugh, and then the woman starts stammering “t-that’s not my goose, I’ve already got one,” and Grizzop can’t help it, he starts cackling, because _what_ , and then she’s yelling, and then he’s yelling, and they’re back at square one.

He tells Sasha later, about the whole thing. And she blinks at him, and grumbles “must have been for her, probably just embarrassed you were there,” and Grizzop smiles because he has no idea what she’s talking about but he’s pretty sure she’s trying to make a joke and he’s not an asshole.

Sasha gives him a little half-smirk, and Grizzop figures that’s as good a reaction as any.

The goose flies at his face this time.

If Grizzop had been anything near sober, he probably could have avoided this, but as it is he’s flat on his back in the middle of the busiest street in Cairo, with a massive aquatic bird going at him like it wants his eyes as a midnight snack.

 _No, thanks,_ he thinks. _I like my eyes._

He grabs the thing by the neck—gods, who knew geese were so strong?—and he means to stab it through with an arrow, but instead he just gets air as an Azu-shaped hand picks up the thing, holding it at arms length as it honks and flaps its wings. Grizzop scrambles to his feet just as the goose attempts to bite off Azu’s fingers.

“Azu—“ he begins, about to offer her the arrow to kill the damn thing already, please make the noise stop—but she interrupts him.

“It’s a goose, Grizzop!”

She’s staring at the thing with a little _too_ much enthusiasm, and Grizzop thinks that maybe she’s had a little too much to drink.

“Yeah, Azu, it’s—wait,” he stops, and looks the thing over as it continues to try and mangle Azu’s hand (is this the same type of goose as last time?) “how did it even get to Cairo, isn’t this species from Europe—“

“We must follow it!”

“I mean, it must be really lost—what.”

“Come, Grizzop! Let us follow the goose!”

“No, really,” Grizzop replies, “what.”

He tries to remind her that they're looking for Sasha, because they are worried about her, because she is more important than a very, very directionally challenged waterfowl, but Azu is already on the camel, and she’s put the goose on the camel, and so Grizzop also gets on the camel, and he thinks about all the choices he’s made in his life that got him to this point.

The goose screams at them every time they go a direction it doesn’t like. Every so often, the goose bites him, and he thinks it looks pretty smug about it. And then the goose starts pulling at his clothes, and putting its beak in his ears, and—-

You know what? Somehow, it manages to bring them to Sasha. And if one of Grizzop’s arrows manages to go off course in just the right way as to strike it down as it flies around the pub screaming? Well then, that’s not his fault, now is it? He does feel a little bit bad, as Azu holds the thing in her arms like its some precious thing, but not bad enough to regret his decision.

Sasha sidles up to him and they share a look as Azu mourns the goose.

“Nice shot with that one, mate,” she says to him. Grizzop grins.

“I have no idea what you’re talking about. Accident.”

Sasha looks at him as if she can’t quite figure out if he’s making a joke, and Grizzop doesn’t want to leave her hanging so he leans in and mutters “do you know that thing tried to bite my nose off,” and then Sasha relaxes and she chuckles.

“No loss, really, then. I mean, I feel bad for Azu, but really. Who’d want a goose to tell them that, anyway?”

Grizzop has no idea what anyone around him is saying, ever. But he’s pretty sure Sasha’s his favorite.


	2. Chapter 2

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> happy birthday caeliulpus! this is absolutely for you dude <3
> 
> enjoy more grizzop shenanigans!
> 
> let! grizzop! say! fuck!

Grizzop is _absolutely certain_ of four things. One—that Sasha is never going to be allowed to drive a carriage again. Two—that they had closed and locked the carriage doors before setting off. Three—despite this, there was a goose standing atop Hamid’s head. It easily doubled the halfling’s height. And four—that this goose (and now Grizzop’s _sure_ it’s the one from before) is definitely not native to the Middle East.

“You!” he shrieks at the goose, which honks raucously back, which causes Hamid to scream in surprise and pitch forward, falling ungracefully into Grizzop and smashing his face full of feathers. The goose decides this must be Grizzop’s fault, apparently, and begins doing its best to bite him.

After the fiasco in Cairo, Grizzop had decided that that he really ought to maybe know a thing or two about the subject of geese, which for some unfathomable reason occupied quite a few books in the al-Tahan library. It had been an unsuccessful venture—surprisingly, he couldn’t find anything under “goose is stalking me” or “goose reincarnation theory”—but he had learned more than he ever wanted to know about the “care and keeping of your goose.” All the geese in those books had looked calm, and docile, and maybe even a little bit friendly.

He’s starting to wonder, as Azu’s large hands lift the bird off him (for a _second time,_ really?), hissing and spitting, if any of the illustrators had actually ever met a goose.

He leaps to his feet, nocking an arrow at the bird’s stupid angry face, but Azu, always the dramatic, gasps and in a startlingly incredible feat of brilliance flings open the door to the carriage and absolutely _lobs_ the thing at full strength. Unfortunately, it seems that when birds are pitched out a high-speed carriage they _don’t_ manage to catch themselves before hitting the ground, if the furious honk cut off by a jolt of the carriage and some lovely flesh noises are any indication.

Grizzop almost cackles—ah, retribution—but before he can enjoy this victory Azu has jumped out of the carriage. He stares at the space where she was as her armor clangs loudly where she _tumbles down a mountain._ Grizzop gives a very loud, very long sigh, continues to think about how much time he has left in his life, and, ignoring Hamid’s protests, leaps out after her. He tries to land gracefully—he’s been observing Sasha, okay?—but all he really manages to do is slam his head into the side of a mountain. Very hard.

He doesn’t even hear Sasha land. One moment he’s cursing the mere concept of hard-packed earth, the next she’s in his field of vision, blinking owlishly.

“Y’alright, mate?”

“Yeah,” he replies, brushing himself off as he gets to his feet, “Where’s—oh.”

Azu is groaning a few feet away. She looks fine, maybe a bit bruised, but her head is turned away from them, up the way they came, and it’s all too easy for Grizzop to spot the mess of bone and feathers that he’s sure must have been a goose approximately thirty seconds prior. At least, he thinks it used-to-be-a-goose until he realizes that the groaning he thought was coming from Azu sounds suspiciously like honking, and that actually, it kind of sounds like its coming from— _ohgodsthegooseisstillalive._

How. Also, why?

Grizzop goes up to Azu, who, as he approaches he realizes is whimpering, and tries to reassure her with words that he’s fairly certain do not have the same impact when delivered to the sound of a goose’s death knell. Which he really should—but before he can do anything, Sasha slinks forward, pulls out her adamantine dagger, and quickly stabs the thing through, instantly quieting the horrible noise. It’s all so effortless the way she does it, without hesitation, without flinching, and Grizzop is reminded, not for the first time, of just how much Artemis he finds in her.

“Alright,” she says, sliding her dagger away, barely giving the goose a second look, “taken care of that awful thing, then. Should probably go find Hamid before he gets weird and lonely.”

Well, he supposes, mostly just how much Sasha there is to her.

Sasha and him are playing cards—he’s just letting her win at this point, it’s just for fun, but he thinks she might have started to notice with the the incredulous look she gives him as he puts down the most garbage cards he can find—but at least she seems more comfortable now, after his blunder earlier. He’s still embarrassed—he doesn’t want Sasha to think of him poorly, and he knows he made an ass of himself. He _likes Sasha._ He feels a connection with her in a way that he doesn’t with the others—he would never have asked Hamid to join the cult of Artemis, and it’s not like Azu was going to change faiths. And he doesn’t want her to feel uncomfortable around him. Her wants her to feel safe. He wants her to _be_ safe.

Anyways, the game is going great until the goose shows up.

Grizzop lets out a very loud shriek of rage as he spots the thing _running_ at him at full speed, honking and flapping its wings as its feet slap against the hard-packed earth. Grizzop fires off an arrow but the goose somehow dodges it (he swears to Artemis, if the thing is _learning_ the more it comes back) and Sasha’a drawn her daggers but then it’s on top of them. But it races right past Grizzop and he only has a moment of relief before he realizes, oh no, Sasha’s going to get another scar because I have a goose curse, until he realizes that the goose has stopped in front of her, and the goose is staring at Sasha, and Sasha is staring at the goose, her daggers still held out awkwardly as if she’s not quite sure what do with them, and then, okay, Grizzop has seen everything because the goose starts nuzzling Sasha’s legs, has stopped its flailing and honking to try to get as close to her as possible. It takes a moment for Sasha to to stop looking at the goose like it might let down the act and start trying to eat her face off, which, considering Grizzop’s track record, fair.

He lowers his bow slightly, as long as he’s certain it’s not going to start trying to tear apart Sasha’s abdomen, but still keeps it ready. He doesn’t trust the thing to not turn around and start attacking _him._ A few more moments pass like this, with Sasha just staring as the goose continues to press itself against her as Grizzop watches, and Grizzop never actually thought he would wish for the goose to start some violence.

“Er, seems to like you?”

Sasha jolts, as if she’d forgotten Grizzop was there, and _okay,_ something is up with Sasha. She doesn’t reply to him for a few seconds.

“This is the goose following _you,_ Grizzop?”

Yeah, so he has a goose curse, but does she really have to rub it in like that?

“Ah, yeah, sorry about? That?”

She continues to stare at the goose vacantly, and it’s starting to freak him out.

“Sasha? Er, Sasha? Everything okay?”

She blinks up at him, and for a moment he swears he sees her eyes glisten. And then, in a motion so fast he doesn’t even see it properly, the goose’s throat has been slit and her hands are stained red with the blood seeping from its neck. She tosses it to the ground, nods stiffly at Grizzop, and turns around, walking away to the other side of the compound.

……What.

Grizzop’s not even sure what he did, but he tries to apologize for…whatever it was, later, as Wilde is escorting them down the mountain.

She just shakes her head. From the look of her eyes, it seems like she’s been crying.

The bird manages to find him in the Dionysus temple.

It’s all normal for a few minutes—Grizzop is chastising Wilde, Wilde is bleeding out of his ears (y’know, normal everyday interaction)—and then he hears the honking and and he experiences all of the five stages of grief in approximately ten seconds before it explodes through the doorway in a frenzy of feathers, a Dionysus cleric hot on its heels.

Grizzop has had a terrible, horrible, no good, very bad, day. He does not have the time or the emotional capacity for this.

 _“Who keeps! letting! waterfowl! into buildings!”_ he shrieks, as the goose lunges for him with a homicidal glint in its eyes.

He looks to the cleric to support him—is the man _grinning?_ —and then to Wilde, who is staring at the thing with a sort of aloof detachment that Grizzop does not _need_ from him right now.

He doesn’t manage to pull out his arrows in time, and it bowls him over, and yeah, Grizzop is actually okay with the goose just ending him at this point because he knows Wilde will _never_ let him live this down.

He tries to grapple the goose, he really does, but gods is the thing strong for weighing even less than he does. He’s about thirty seconds into what he imagines is the first-ever goose-goblin fight to the death—ah, the stories that would be told—when he realizes that the two other people in the room have neglected to lift a finger to assist him, apparently leaving him to his grisly goose-death. The cleric continues to smirk. Wilde continues to stare blankly. The goose continues its effort to tear holes in Grizzop’s ears.

Wilde speaks up, then: “Is that—do you have a _goose,_ Grizzop?”

He’s blinking very rapidly, as if he thinks he might be hallucinating, and still makes no move to help Grizzop, and _okay._

Grizzop’s _had it._

“Sure. Sure! Fine! It’s _my_ godsdamn goose Wilde, whatever that means! It’s been following me since Prague, and it just it keeps! Coming! Back! I have some horrid goose curse and I have no idea why, and I’d _had it_ with the sly glances, and the comments, from everyone, and this new, horrible, awful thing to put the cherry on top of the horrible, awful, past twenty-four hours. So if you’d like to maybe just this once, stop snarking and treating me like some _circus sideshow_ and do something about it that would be so, so great!”

Wilde bursts out laughing.

Real, actual laughter, not his infuriating chuckle, and Grizzop is so gobsmacked by this that it almost makes his anger vanish into confusion. But then he remembers that he is fueled by anger and spite and actually, fuck this. There’s a goose on top of him, and he’s crying, and his friends are in danger, and he really, _really_ does not have time for this right now.

“Oh, now you have the energy,” he spits furiously, “to make fun. How typical, Wilde. How _nice for you.”_

And he seems to falter at that, his face falling into something akin to his more normal swagger. And Grizzop doesn’t care how sleep deprived Wilde is, he’s going to kick him.

“What.” He snaps, as the goose screams some more and tries to bite his nose. Honestly, it’s kind of just background noise at this point.

Oh gods, where had his life gone wrong?

“Well, _obviously,_ Grizzop, it’s your soulmate goose.”

Grizzop knows Wilde is still talking because he can see his mouth moving, but none of it is processing because—

“Soulmate. Goose.”

Wilde cocks an eyebrow at him.

“Yes? Leads to your soulmate?”

“I’m aro-ace.” Grizzop blurts out unthinkingly, because wow, this is something he needs to process, and Wilde just shrugs, but in like, a mocking way.

“Platonic, then. Has it really been following you since _Prague? “_

Grizzop is too bewildered by the situation to make a witty retort.

“Well, I kept killing it?”

“You kept—“ Wilde says as the cleric, who has been silently watching this conversation, shrieks “WHAT!”

Both Wilde and Grizzop wince at the tone, and the goose, as if seeing this as some kind of challenge, screams louder. Wilde rubs at his temples despairingly, and Grizzop wishes violently that he could cut off his ears.

“It’s trying to lead you to your soulmate, Grizzop. They can get a little overexcited, sure—“

_“Overexcited?!”_

“—but they lead you to your soulmate. You haven’t noticed it taking you to someone specific, have you?”

And Grizzop is about to retort, of course not, but then he thinks about the first time he saw the goose and how he met his friends later that day. And how in Cairo it had led him and Azu straight to the bar. And how it had run up to Sasha, how it seemed to adore her, and how she had reacted, and how much he cares about her, how much she matters, and—

Oh, _godsdammit._

He just lets the goose follow him, trying to comfort himself through the honking and hissing with the knowledge it will lead him to where Sasha and the others are. It’s strange, even to himself, how fast he accepts it, this new truth in his world, but really, he just doesn’t have the time do anything else.

It keeps biting at the pitiful excuses for Harlequins every time he comes across another one, and he almost feels kinship until he remembers all the times it has tried to eat his eyes.

Eldarion is more than a bit miffed when she sees a loud, dirty goose enter right after a loud, dirty goblin, but apparently it’s just him that hasn’t heard of the soulmate thing so she just forces a smile at him. And then they’re plane-walking and this stupid goose decides to try and come with them, and Grizzop has to deal with the emotional trauma of watching a goose be horribly stretched across countries and then vanish.

He’s not sure he ever wants to know what exactly happened to it.

And then they’re in Rome, and running for their lives—ah, back to the same old, same old—and Grizzop sees his friends again, he sees _Sasha,_ and he almost blurts out that he _knows,_ but then he realizes that he’s in public and that this is a really, really bad time.

It can wait, he decides, for what might be the first time in his life. He doesn’t have to this right away.

He’s _sure_ he’s got the time.


End file.
